Michele Lee Sefton

Being a Woman Michele Lee Sefton

Being a Woman - Becoming is an empowering collection of fourteen poems that celebrate the boundless strength, courage, and connection found in women, beautifully illustrated by the poet's daughter. The first Being a Woman collection introduced a speaker just discovering her feminine strengths and her voice. The speaker used that voice to question beliefs and practices that were no longer serving her. This second collection moves the reader from the first-person speaker, found in the first collection, into a universal voice that describes feelings and situations relatable to all women, including three poems with historical reference. Readers will turn each page with a heightened awareness of self, connection to each other, and to all that is possible. These uplifting poems, that uniquely describe determined women, were written during a time when the poet felt anything but that. Existing in a world plagued with a global virus and widespread inequality, the poet began writing and with each completed poem, she became one of the empowered women she was attempting to portray. It is her desire, and that of the illustrator, that each reader shares in the empowered experiences in these carefully-crafted lines, brought to life by drawings that enhance each poem, and that readers will be uplifted, want to uplift others, be encouraged to reflect, and be emboldened to face challenges with a newly charged zest for life.